AMI RADUNSKAYA

WATCH US: Women Achieving Through Community Hubs in the US

HRD-1649365

This project seeks to increase and diversify the number of professional mathematicians in the United States by identifying and proliferating best practices and known mechanisms for increasing the success of women in mathematics graduate programs, particularly women from under-represented groups. This video presents an encapsulation of our plan and vision.

The project team first will explore the contextual factors that serve to support or inhibit female pursuit of mathematics doctorates by interviewing a variety of women who were undergraduate mathematics majors in the past, as well as current professional mathematicians. They then will use this information to better understand the most effective features of various current and past initiatives that are trying to increase the participation of women in advanced mathematics. A key stakeholder meeting will develop a process for effective, collective decision-making, to utilize what the project team learns from the interviews. The leadership team will develop a website with discussion board and social media components to highlight "best practices" and facilitate a virtual community for women interested in mathematics. Finally, a distillation of program elements and their targeted effectiveness will inform the selection of interconnected activities to test on a scalable model.These prototypes will be implemented at several sites chosen to represent a diversity of constituencies and local support infrastructure.

WATCH US: Women Achieving Through Community Hubs in the US

HRD-1649365

This project seeks to increase and diversify the number of professional mathematicians in the United States by identifying and proliferating best practices and known mechanisms for increasing the success of women in mathematics graduate programs, particularly women from under-represented groups. This video presents an encapsulation of our plan and vision.

The project team first will explore the contextual factors that serve to support or inhibit female pursuit of mathematics doctorates by interviewing a variety of women who were undergraduate mathematics majors in the past, as well as current professional mathematicians. They then will use this information to better understand the most effective features of various current and past initiatives that are trying to increase the participation of women in advanced mathematics. A key stakeholder meeting will develop a process for effective, collective decision-making, to utilize what the project team learns from the interviews. The leadership team will develop a website with discussion board and social media components to highlight "best practices" and facilitate a virtual community for women interested in mathematics. Finally, a distillation of program elements and their targeted effectiveness will inform the selection of interconnected activities to test on a scalable model.These prototypes will be implemented at several sites chosen to represent a diversity of constituencies and local support infrastructure.

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Ami Radunskaya

Lead Presenter

March 20, 2017 | 09:57 a.m.

I want to give credit to the people who actually made this video: thank you Ann Dixon and Audrey Dixon for video editing, Sarah Yoseph for gathering materials, Ezra Buchla for sound editing and Stephanie Vendetti for the Nebraska Conference group photo.

We look forward to hearing your comments! What as helped YOU succeed? How can we make that opportunity available to everyone?

What an effective video to include the voices of successful female mathematicians describing what worked for them!

Could you please describe in more detail how you will distill program elements to create and implement scalable models? Could you also say what you mean by community hubs? Would those be virtual?

Finally, many of the women's comments focused on what they did with and for each other. How will WATCH US use its data to change university departments and faculty so they are more welcoming and inclusive?

I found your video truly inspiring! I am also interested to learn more about your community hubs. As you mentioned on our page, it seems like we have wonderfully similar missions to advance females in STEM, and I am excited hear more about your approach.

Compelling stories and very effective use of graphics to show the underrepresentation of women and minorities in math! In your interviews are you finding that the culture around college and graduate-level mathematics is unsupportive in general or particularly unsupportive for women and thus would help to explain the gender gap? To the extent that your investigation uncovers barriers that precede college, are there ways to expand your work and/or alliances you can form with other INCLUDES projects to begin building a “pathway” to a math degree? I’d also be interested in hearing more about the Community Hubs and whether the inclusion of academic partners presents an opportunity for institutional/cultural change that might remove some of the current barriers.

Ami Radunskaya

Lead Presenter

March 20, 2017 | 04:08 p.m.

Our research is just beginning, and so we have not yet collected data from all the interviews (the video was intended as a teaser!). We will let you know what we find out: I expect that many aspects of the culture that women find disheartening are also an discouragement to other groups.

We are planning an online "hub" called "WomenDoMath" that will provide opportunities to connect, to share stories and data, and to provide resources for "best practices" (this is one way that we will communicate with departments and faculty). But the community hubs will also be events and groups that connect people in a given region. For example, we intend to build on the existing AWM (Association for Women in Mathematics) student chapters and EDGE clusters (these were marked on a map in the video). We also want to support regional conferences, and use the online hub to give access to would-be participants who live too far away to make the journey. Finally, our stakeholder meeting and our Advisory Board will help us interpret the data that we gather, and develop strategies to change the culture at all levels.

Carrie Eaton

Guest

March 21, 2017 | 08:56 a.m.

Hi Ami, let me know if QUBES Hub can help you get your Hub started in any way. We've been working with other math groups to create Virtual community space. Also, I'm involved in a math Mamas FB support group. I think family is something that was important to me. I want to make sure we help you women know you can have a math PhD and have a family through personal narratives. I'd love to chat with you about the project.

Ami Radunskaya

Lead Presenter

March 21, 2017 | 09:59 p.m.

Hi Carrie,

Thanks for the offer. I'd definitely like to chat with you about the project. (I'm in the math Mamas group too!) Ami

Marianne Korten

Guest

March 21, 2017 | 04:56 p.m.

It helped me when it dawned on me that discouraging "us" made free room for "them" that they did not need to earn.

Ami Radunskaya

Lead Presenter

March 21, 2017 | 09:58 p.m.

Thanks for the insight - sometimes a tiny bit of rage is a good motivator.

Chris Boynton, EdD

What a great project ! I am wondering what we need to do at the k12 to feed into this work :)

Ami Radunskaya

Lead Presenter

March 24, 2017 | 12:21 p.m.

Great comment! We know that the K12 experience is critical, but our own focus is on the UG/Grad piece of the pipeline because that's what we know best. Would love to collaborate with folks working with the earlier stages.

Ami, Thanks for the explanation of the many ways that the project will create community hubs - so comprehensive in terms of both virtual and in-person possibilities. I will be interested to hear more as your project matures.

Rosann

Marianne Korten

Guest

March 26, 2017 | 12:04 p.m.

Yes, pleas, I am interested in that too.

Dr. Smith

Guest

March 27, 2017 | 10:36 a.m.

"...Surround myself with people who are awesome and who think I am awesome. And we tell each other that as often as we can" Dr. Amanda Ruiz

That says it all! Thanks for sharing this tremendous work. Dr. Dwyane Smith, Provost Harris-Stowe State University